


Dreams Aren't Free

by notenoughtogivebread



Series: 250 Glee Fic Prompts [4]
Category: Glee
Genre: Bullying, Friendship, Gen, Grease - Freeform, Season/Series 04, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-13 13:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4523883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notenoughtogivebread/pseuds/notenoughtogivebread
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for 250 Glee Fic Prompts: 71. Santana finds Unique backstage during <i>Grease.</i> Family takes a lot of forms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams Aren't Free

Unique wishes sometimes that she had Kurt and Mercedes’ numbers on her phone still. They had been in the old one that Tacey Miller and her gang—the volleyball team? whatever—had smashed. That was the last day she wore her heels on the way home from school.

See, when she was planning the transfer to McKinley, they were the reason why. Their very fabulousness made her believe that Unique’s own special qualities would be recognized here.

Instead, she had run into all this talk about The New Rachel. Rachel? Yeah, the girl had pipes—and ambition to spare, that’s for sure. And God knows, when he wasn’t sulking, Blaine Anderson was quite the showman. But how did last year’s Nationals MVP _not_ guarantee her solos?

Instead she felt that she had just been kidding herself. Glee club was still show biz; everyone fighting tooth and claw—and don’t get her started on Mr. Schu. She knew now that Kurt and Mercedes had both struggled too. Mercedes had sat quietly—and prayerfully—with her last week when her dreams fell down around her, and shared some of her own—and Kurt’s—story. Kurt himself was just GONE, as absent on social media as he was from the choir room, as lost as the look on Blaine’s face. So, yeah, McKinley wasn’t QUITE what Unique had expected.

She sat now backstage at _Grease,_ a pair of high heels dangling from her hand. She was dressed as Wade still, but back here, with the band kids and the dancers (well, most of them) and the other kids from Glee, she at least felt like herself even if her clothes were less than honest.

Santana, passing by on bare feet but still wearing her Pink Ladies jacket, poked her head in, then ducked through the curtain. “Hey you.”

No one would ever say Ms. Unique Adams couldn’t put on a brave face. “Hey, Santana. You were fabulous tonight, girl.”

“Yeah, well. It’s fun to perform. And see my … friends. But both of us know you would have killed it.”

She looked down at the sparkly heels in Unique’s hand.

“They your boogie shoes? You were A-MAZING in that performance. And once you get out of this cow town, you can be again.”

“People keep saying that. But it feels like forever away. And—I don’t know—I’m not all that sure it gets easier, no matter WHAT they say.”

Santana sat down next to her. “Well, I could give you that bullshit It Gets Better stuff, but that’s what we have Blaine Anderson for.”

Unique turned her fiercest eyebrow raise on Santana at that. “Girl. Are you blind? I’m not sure who this little ray of sunshine you guys keep talking about it is, but it’s not the Blaine Anderson _I_ know, that’s for sure.”

Santana wrinkled her nose and slumped down in the chair. Her fine dark eyes were wet. “Yeah, well. Turns out it sucks getting left behind. _And_ it sucks when you’re the one doing the leaving.”

“We’ve been trying with her,” Unique said quietly.

“I don’t think I care much for Sam’s idea of help.” She swiped at the side of her eyes, where the stage makeup ran dark. Unique fished in her backpack, and came up with a few cotton makeup remover pads, pressing them into Santana’s hand.

“Thanks. Sometimes it’s just hard to see what the next step is. Do I stay in Louisville and try to do the long-distance thing again? And have to be reminded every weekend I come home that my _abuela_ still isn’t talking to me? Or do I go to New York and try to find my place there, even if that means losing Britt completely?”

“You don’t know that that will happen…”

“Try telling Hummel that.”

“Would it be worth it if you became the toast of the town?”

Santana looked up and must have seen how tightly Unique was clinging to that hope for herself. She patted Unique’s hand and sighed. “You know what, kid? I don’t know. I just wish it didn’t feel like growing up meant pieces of myself keep falling off.”

She stood up and headed to the dressing room, turning as she left, saying, “We’re going to Breadstix after. Well, some of us are. Britt says Sam is somewhere talking to Blaine. Coming?”

“I’m Marley’s ride,” she said, placing the heels on the table, and following after Santana. “And I should come with you to make sure she’s doing her skin care properly. Stage makeup is hell on her T-zone.”

“That’s my girl,” said Santana.


End file.
